Saudi reformers face resistance in provinces

November 19, 2003|By Evan Osnos, Tribune foreign correspondent.

BURAYDAH, Saudi Arabia — The Saudi government's reform message is the same in Buraydah as it is in Riyadh, and it blares from the central mosque of this provincial city: "Do not allow rivers of blood to flow in the land of the Prophet."

But as Saudi leaders struggle to forge a stable future for their troubled kingdom, they face a yawning gap between the agenda in the capital and the fundamentalism still fiercely protected in much of the country.

Just three hours' drive from Riyadh's shimmering palaces and bold pronouncements, this is the other Saudi Arabia.

Buraydah is home to the kind of anger that feeds a growing guerrilla campaign by Islamic militants. After years of insisting that extremism is not a problem here, Saudi leaders now are calling for urgent reforms to combat religious fanaticism.

"We are governed by religion. We are not governed by anything else," said Abdullah, a 21-year-old theology student who stayed in the shadow of the Buraydah mosque after the Friday prayer crowds dispersed. "Even those in power who think they can govern us, they cannot govern us.

"The thing that will make someone, or make me, pack a car with explosives is that we know, deep down, that Americans are here to do what they did to Afghanistan and Iraq," said Abdullah, who declined to give his last name.

Saudi leaders argue that angry voices in places like this drab commercial city 200 miles northwest of Riyadh represent only a small minority of Saudi attitudes. Most Saudis condemn Islamist militant attacks of the kind that killed 17 people in a Riyadh suicide bombing Nov. 8.

But the leadership also knows that violent minorities speak with devastating consequences. For that reason, analysts say, the prospects for peaceful reform may hinge less on what is declared in the capital than on what is believed in the provinces.

"There is a gap between the elites and the reality in the streets," said Sulaiman Al-Hattlan, a columnist for the Saudi daily Al Watan. "Change does not come by a political decision alone. The extremists have worked very hard for the last 30 years to set the social agenda, whereas the so-called liberals have done almost nothing."

What is clear is that standoffs with the government are escalating in Saudi Arabia. Since May, when the bombing of a Riyadh housing complex killed 35 people, including nine attackers, security forces have raided dozens of farms, offices and homes across the kingdom's 13 provinces in search of plots. The operations have led to the arrests of 600 suspected militants, authorities say, and a series of deadly shootouts with police.

Security forces also have seized guns and explosives in at least 12 raids from the western holy city of Mecca to the eastern provinces along the Persian Gulf. One senior Saudi official estimates that 300 Saudi members of Al Qaeda returned from fighting or training in Afghanistan and have enlisted another 2,000 new recruits at home.

No less important than the sheer number of guerrillas, however, is that militants have found havens in areas that resist government pressure to root them out.

"For these people to pull off what they have done [in recent attacks], others are looking after them, giving them shelter," a senior Western diplomat said. "That permissive environment is the real issue."

Refusal to betray

Mohsen al-Awajy, an Islamist lawyer with contacts in the militant community, condemns the recent attacks, but he suspects many Saudis will be loath to help authorities find the militants.

"I am loyal to the government and the country," he said. "But if one of the people who was hunted by the police came to my door, I must also be loyal to our tradition, and that tradition is about generosity. It is impossible to say, `Go away.'"

Abdullah, the Buraydah student, puts it more bluntly: "We won't betray them. We won't throw them to the wolves. We will cover and protect them."

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudi Arabia struggled to accept the reality that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi. But two years later, the escalating attacks on Saudi soil have jolted the government of Crown Prince Abdullah toward reforms of religious and educational systems that it hopes will roll back the spread of intolerant, anti-Western and anti-regime rhetoric, particularly among young people.

In a region struggling to accommodate a huge generation of young people, Saudi youths are particularly underemployed, insular and restive. They are a vast target for militant recruiters: Two-thirds of the Saudi population of 18 million is younger than 25. Unemployment is more than 14 percent, affording a dwindling share of Saudis the chance to find stimulating work or to study abroad.

The result is a growing pool of aimless new graduates with degrees from local theology programs but few skills to engage the rest of the world.